


Answer me

by MajorityRim



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, Relationship Struggles, Sherlock is more of a cameo than a character, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorityRim/pseuds/MajorityRim
Summary: "Why'd you choose me?""Isn't it obvious?"Sebastian doesn't know how to explain just why he picked Jim, what makes him so special to him, and so important in Sebastian's life.
Relationships: Sebastian Moran/Jim Moriarty
Kudos: 15





	Answer me

Jim Moriarty is all knives. He has either moulded himself to be like that over the years or came out of the womb with razor blades for teeth, but either way he is all knives. For a man like Sebastian Moran who is addicted to dangerous people and the situations they can put him in, Jim is the perfect destructive hurricane for him to chase. 

It'll kill him one day, but only if the smoking doesn't get him first. 

Jim can cut a person in half with just a look, that particular laugh where he turns his nose down and snorts wounds more greviously than standing on a landmine, his finger prodded hard against a person's chest is enough to cause them to drop dead there on the spot. Sebastian doesn't get a free pass from that cutting personality either. He's the closest thing Jim has to a friend, he's arguably the man's lover, but nobody is exempt from the well crafted blade that is Jim Moriarty. 

The first incision is shallow, it's a joke at Sebastian's expense half way through a meeting while Jim waxes poetic about all the things he can offer the client. 

"Oh him? Don't worry, he's nobody. Just there to make sure I make it home by curfew." 

It won't be the last time Sebastian hears something along those lines, but he's not sure how to take it then or any moment it's said from that point forward. Jim delights in the fact that he's untouchable, flaunts every aspect of his life so why not flaunt their relationship? Do they have a relationship at all? Sebastian doesn't know if he should doubt the validity of what he thought was a budding romance or if Jim's just being a prick and trying to stir him up. 

Sebastian buries it under 'quirks about Jim that nobody will ever hope to understand' and does his best to forget about it. He doesn't react when Jim talks about how big another one of his employees is; and elects to conviently forget about how Jim will on the occasion hang off others to fill some role but never him. 

They're all just quirks of Jim's. They mean nothing. 

He really should just ask, but if anything it'd just be asking for trouble rather than answers. 

As far as Sebastian knows, he's the only one who is sleeping with or has slept with Jim. Jim doesn't strike him as a man who intentionally only takes one partner at a time; it's much more likely that he can't stand anybody else enough to let them in his bed, and there's some amount of pride that comes with knowing that Sebastian's the only one able to get close to Jim to see him in his PJs on a Saturday morning. It's an odd feeling, to be proud that he's worth something to Jim, but this isn't his first unhealthy relationship so Sebastian just takes it as it is and wears his little merit badge like he's a boy scout who has done well enough to earn such praise. 

Jim cuts that badge right off him though. One snowy night in November Jim comes home with the new recruit, all giggles and all over the other man. He looks Sebastian dead in the eyes as they walk in, half undressed already, hair a mess and tie abandoned in the hallway. 

"Oh, you're still up?" The disinterest in Sebastian drips from Jim's mouth, and Sebastian feels the stab of Jim's knife with each drawn out syllable. "I figured you'd be in bed, don't mind us." 

"Don't mind at all." Sebastian grinds out in return. He gets to his feet in a rush, knocks over Jim's stupid vase from whatever museum he'd stolen it from on the way out. It shatters only because Sebastian doesn't bother to try and catch it. At least if Jim's punishing him for it later he'll be paying attention to Sebastian and not some bastard who has only had the job for a week. 

He goes out and drinks until he's blind, until he can't stand, then he picks a fight and ends up in a cell overnight. 

Jim doesn't come pick him up and Sebastian is grateful for that. Bitterly he wonders if Jim even knows where he is, or if he cares at all. 

Sebastian knows he needs to get out if he's going to live to see the next decade, but he's not sure he wants a life without Jim in it anyway. 

When he finally does get home, or back to Jim's home as it were, the vase is still on the ground shattered and there's still clothing scattered all over the floor but there's no sign of Jim or his booty call. Just a mess for Sebastian to clean up, a knife straight to the heart and a reminder of his place. 

Jim returns eventually, proudly wearing a mark on his neck from his conquest and Sebastian is reminded again that their relationship is the only thing Jim won't proudly broadcast to the heavens, hell's, and every piece of shit city in between. 

Jim docks Sebastian's pay for the vase, and sends him on baby sitting duty for a client. He gets stabbed in the leg with a fountain pen and ends up with a limp for half a week. 

Sebastian tries to ignore the mark left by the man Jim had brought home, but he'd be lying if he said that the next time Jim and he fucked he didn't try to cover up that mark with his own, even if it had already long since faded away. 

Jim delights in poking at the mark on his neck, he looks at Sebastian as if he knows exactly why it had been placed there. 

"It's very dark." He hums, staring at Sebastian through the mirror. There's absolute gluttonous joy in the man's eyes and it makes Sebastian go weak at the knees. He'd get down and worship Jim if the man told him to, and Jim would skin him alive for the honour. 

Sometime down the road, Jim is invited to some fancy ass party held by one of his more important clients. Sebastian gets exactly an hour's notice before it's time to leave. 

"Put on a suit, Tiger, I've got a party to attend and you're going to be my date." 

"Why not one of your other boy toys?" Sebastian grumbles back under his breath, already getting up from the couch, knowing he has little say in the matter. He's bitter, but he's glad at least that Jim hasn't shunned him again. 

"What was that?" 

Wrong time to pick a fight then, Jim sounds about as impressed as the teachers that used to catch Sebastian smoking in the back end of the school. 

"Why'd you choose me?" Sebastian replies already kicking himself for apparently feeling the need to pick a fight.

"Why do you think, Sebastian?" Jim scoffs. "I think you know very well." 

"Protection then. You're expecting a fight." 

Jim scoffs a second time as he becomes increasingly irritated. 

"There's going to be a fight alright." 

It's silence from then on. Sebastian asks questions about what to expect but Jim completely shuts him out. He only knows that he's still expected to come with Jim when he announces that their car has arrived for pickup. 

Sebastian's just glad he was the one who was picked over all the others, at least he can pretend this way. 

Jim's icy mood shifts completely when they arrive at the giant fuck off mansion of some mafia prick. He's got his game face on, happy to mingle with people who would happily line his pockets just to pick his brain for ten minutes. Sebastian is largely forgotten about. He stands there behind Jim looking intimidating and saying nothing. He's just protection, which plenty of the men and women here have. At least he doesn't stick out here, he can just focus on his job without having to worry about people being on edge and expecting a fight. 

There'll be a fight alright. Jim said as much. 

Half way through the night Jim slows down a little, he's mingled his ass off and Sebastian can get he's about five more sentences out before somebody gets a scathing reply. The knives are about to come out, Sebastian's ready to kill whoever it is that Jim's set his eyes on. 

"Oh him? Mn, I tried to take him as a date but some men can't step away from their work." 

The words are a red hot knife straight through Sebastian's abdomen, he can't breathe, there's blood filling his lungs. 

Jim throws him a glance over his shoulder that tells him to stop acting weird, and Sebastian realises that the sound he'd made hadn't just been in his head. 

A fucking date. 

That little Irish prick. 

Sebastian waits until Jim is done with his conversation before he grabs him roughly but the arm and drags him somewhere quieter. 

"What the fuck was that? A date? When the fuck have you ever wanted to go out on a date?" Sebastian hisses, keeping his voice down so that they don't cause even more of a scene than Sebastian dragging his employer off. 

"I'm a flexible man, Sebastian, I can change my mind on things." 

"Not on this you can't! I've known you for literal years and you've never once--" 

"Oh shut up you're just too dense to realise anything." Jim snaps back. He doesn't take well to being yelled at in any capacity, and Sebastian is overstepping the line like he's competing for the world record in long jump. 

Why not go for gold? Fuck it. 

"You shut up Jim," Sebastian's got knives of his own, and it's on Jim for not considering that, "You're a self absorbed little prick who isn't half as unpredictable as he'd like to be. You're a glorified desk jockey who worked out how to gain the system and now thinks he's too shit, but the truth is without me you'd be dead, so stop pressing my buttons before I murder you myself!" 

Jim is quiet for a moment, as if he didn't expect such an outburst from his favourite pin cushion before he nods and shrugs, completely blowing everything off with a resigned look that means Sebastian is absolutely going to die tonight after the party. 

"You can wait in the car. I don't require you for the rest of the night." 

He walks off without giving Sebastian so much as a second glance, and certainly not allowing any time for Sebastian to respond further. 

Sebastian wonders how long he could go on the run for before Jim found him. But of course he's not going to run, he can't picture a life where he doesn't have Jim by his side. 

He waits in the car like a good soldier, and just hopes that Jim does it himself. Sebastian would request it, but he's pretty sure Jim would go out of his way to deny Sebastian that one last gift even if it meant Jim didn't get to have his revenge first hand. 

When Jim does arrive he still looks absolutely livid. To an outsider he must look fine, a little drunk maybe, but fine, but Sebastian can see the crease of his brow, just slightly there, jaw tense and lips not turned up quite the way they usually are. No lazy and loose smirk, this is all for show. 

The look drops once Jim's finished waving out the window to his mafia buddies. He turns to Sebastian like a viper preparing to strike. Surely Jim wouldn't want blood all over the interior of his car, surely he'll wait at least until they're home and he can order Sebastian to put down a drop sheet. 

"Why'd you choose me?" He asks, and Sebastian is thrown off completely. 

"What?" 

"It's a fair question, you asked me first." Jim replies curtly. "Why. Did. You. Choose. Me?" 

Great, so Sebastian is going to be verbally stabbed to death before he's actually murdered. 

"Who else would I choose?" It's an honest answer, and while Sebastian has deliberately chosen to steer far clear of the big L word, he knows there's nobody else out there for him in the way Jim is. "isn't it obvious why?" 

"Well since I apparently am just a glorified, uninspired pencil pusher, I'd like to know why you think it's obvious." Jim's making him take back his words and Sebastian hates that he wants to do it. He's cooled down enough to regret what he said. 

Jim is his world, every scar he gives Sebastian is treasured; but how does he put into words just what Jim means to him, how does he explain that Jim is just the universe that he lives in. 

"Just like I thought." Jim shakes his head at Sebastian's lack of an answer. 

In the end, Sebastian doesn't get a chance to explain those things to Jim. Jim withdraws from what they had, anything physical is just a need sated, Sebastian becomes an employee and he realises too late that Jim had chosen him, and not just for work. 

Sherlock Holmes ends up being picked next. Sebastian watches through a scope as they talk on multiple occasions. On one occasion Sherlock Holmes looks at Moriarty with a quizzical look and asks:

"Why did you choose me?" 

Jim gives a sinful look and shrugs, burying his hands in the pockets of his trousers as he does.

"You know very well why, Sherlock." 

Sherlock's lip curls up with a slow nod. 

"Yes, I suppose I do." 

A week later, when London is mourning the loss of a poor actor duped into horrendous crimes, Sebastian wonders what might have happened if that had have been his answer instead. 

He'll never know for sure, and he'll regret that every single day.


End file.
